Hold the date: Our JUNE SALON is Sunday, June 27 at 3:30pm. We’ll meet in the rehearsal studio of Symphony Space, 95th street and Broadway; all are invited!

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JOHN DE CLEF PIÑEIRO’s piece “Minute Square” was one of the works performed in the 10-hour music and dance extravaganza that took place May 30 at the FOFA Gallery, at Concordia University, in Montreal. John’s piece was part of the 60×60 Dance Order of Magnitude presentation, in which Vox Novus presented ten hours of music, dance, and video, featuring one-minute works by 600 composers, the most ever to be programmed in a single show. The show is part of Congress 2010, the largest annual interdisciplinary gathering in North America, expecting approximately 10,000 visitors this year.

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DANA RICHARDSON’s “Reverie and Dance” for marimba and flute will receive its world premiere on June 10 at 9:30pm at The Tank, 354 West 45 Street. The program, “From Earth with Love,” exploresa series of musical postcards from six countries written for flute and marimba. Each work dates from the last 25 years and celebrates the unique and beautiful voice of a different cultural perspective. The program includes music by Gareth Farr, Peter Maxwell Davies, Jean-Michel Damase, Astor Piazzolla, Tsuneya Tanabe, and features a world premiere by Long Island composer Dana Richardson. (just)music is a flute and percussion duo that was formed by two graduates of SUNY Purchase in a Brooklyn basement in 2009. Alice Jones (flute) and Cesare Papetti (percussion) have performed in New York City at Symphony Space, The Stone, the Look and Listen Festival, the Composers Now! Festival, as well as across Europe and China. Tickets are $10. For more information, see www.TheTankNYC.org.

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JOHN EATON’s latest opera premieres on Tuesday, June 15th at 8pm at Symphony Space in the Peter J. Sharp (large) Theater

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Composed by John Eaton with a libretto by Estela Eaton

$30 General Admission

Members, Students, Seniors $20

Day of Show $32 (2-hour adv Rush tickets available $10)

BUY Event tickets online, or call 212-864-5400

THE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY OPERA (CCO) presents THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON by John Eaton with the participation of THE POCKET OPERA PLAYERS, AT THE 2010 ACA FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN MUSIC.

Following his success with the hilarious stage opera, Pumped Fiction (2007), John Eaton and the Pocket Opera Players, present Eaton’s new work, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Featured artists will include Chris Trakas, Baritone, Linda Larson, Soprano, Jennifer Connor, soprano, Jennifer Roderer, Mezzo-soprano, Tony Boutté, Tenor, and Dominic Inferrera, Bass-baritone. Karl Kramer is conducting and the director is Marco Capalbo.

John Eaton comments on the choice of this story: “It was that dramatic line that attracted me to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the first place. The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, always remembered to keep the surface level of his writing engaging and amusing. The story of Benjamin Button is full of surprises, hilarious incidents, and completely ironic situations that keep you on the edge of your seat. So often in theater experiences, and especially in opera, you find yourself wondering if the author really asked himself if anything was happening on the stage-to paraphrase the composer-critic, Virgil Thomson. The first scene of my opera is taken almost verbatim from the Fitzgerald story. There is an abundance of movement and excitement throughout this production-much of it taken directly from the original story.”

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Every summer Mannes College of Music hosts the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance. Directed by Marc Ponthus, the IFCP brings together a diversity of approach, talent, and experiences during a week and a half of workshops, master classes, lectures, and symposium. Daily concerts feature some of the most significant performers, composers, and thinkers working in contemporary music today. This year’s opening concert (JUNE 15) features a work by the NYCC’s own BRIAN FENNELLY. Hair-raisingly virtuosic pianist Marc Ponthus, mesmerizing violinist Rolf Schulte and “Revolutionary Flutist and Composer” Robert Dick perform:

Pierre Boulez: S
onatas 1 and 3 (including Constellation Miroir with two pianos),

Elliott Carter: Four Lauds

Brian Fennelly: Sigol Musings

Luciano Berio: Sequenza (for flute)

Robert Dick: Heat HIstory (for flute with Glissando headjoint) [World Premiere]

The concert is June 15 at 8pm at Mannes, 150 W 85th Street, (212) 580-0210 x4884. Admission for events at Mannes: 

$20/$10 for students

$8 for individual master class or lecture; please email ifcp@newschool.edu to reserve a seat

Student performances are free of charge; Tickets are available at the door beginning one hour prior to each event

For more information and other concerts in the series, see http://www.ifcpny.com/

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RICHARD BROOKS’s String Quartet #4 will receive its world premiere by the Zukofsky Quartet at the Thalia, Symphony Space on June 19, 2010 at 4 pm during the American Composers Alliance Annual Festival. As you can probably guess, a fair number of NYCC composers are represented in the year’s festival taking place June 15-19, including the aforementioned John Eaton opera… see also Richard McCandless and Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy, along with others who have been guests of the NYCC in the past at http://composers.com/June-Festival-2010.

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MARTIN HALPERN’s ”Triptych,” a bill of three new one-act chamber operas by Martin Halpern, will be performed at the New York New Church, 114 East 35th Street in Manhattan, on June 24, 25 and 26 at 8 PM.

The first opera, The Stronger, is freely based on the play by August Strindberg; the second, The Sculpture, is freely based on Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken; the third, The Proposal, is freely based on the play by Anton Chekhov. Taken together, the three operas are a set of variations on the theme of requited and unrequited love.  

Featured in the cast are sopranos Judith Barnes and Nancy Loesch, mezzo-soprano Darcy Dunn, tenor Michael Boley, and baritone Vaughn Lindquist. The pianist is Earl Buys, whose performance in Mr. Halpern’s chamber operas Purgatory and The Death of Oedipus in October, 2009, earned this accolade from reviewer Joel Benjamin: “In an intensely satisfying evening of music and drama, his playing was as thorough-going and passionate as any orchestra’s.”

Music direction is by Mr. Halpern, and Aram Tchobanian is stage director and production coordinator.  

Tickets, at $20 for each performance, may be reserved by calling Theater Mania at 212-352-3101 or online at www.theatermania.com.